Text: 'If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die - The Power of Colour in Visual Storytelling'

In my research around colour theory and uses in film I have been reading Patti Bellantoni's book 'If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die'. The book details the various symbolic associations made by considering colour in mise-en-scene, and usefully lists a number of case study films to illustrate this further. That said, with the nature and vagueness of colour theory, these interpretations are very much subjective and in some cases it is difficult to draw the link personally between the elements she describes. Below I have summarized the main points Bellantoni raises in the book:

• Colour is planned weeks in advance but can also be instinctual to whatever 'feels right', or if the planned colour simply does not work.
• A colour needs to be chosen carefully in response to the context to which it is established - it should not be too vague or intellectual that an audience has an unwanted reaction to it.
• Bright red is a 'visual caffeine' - representing libido, aggression, anxiety and compulsion. It 'activates any latent passions' and comes at the audience - making space look shallower than it actually is.
• Warm reds are sensual or lusty, and dark red is mature, regal and elegant.
• The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) makes use of an entire spectrum of colour, moving from monochrome which in this context represents a dull and uninspiring life. The red shoes Dorothy is given represents power, the yellow road creates brightness and happiness, Dorothy's pale blue clothes connote powerlessness and the green of the witch has strong associations with toxicity and corruption.
• Colour by contrast is powerful - if an environment is 'subdued or neutral' anything placed within it will appear more intense.
• Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992) uses colour to track the characters' emotional arc throughout the film. At the beginning red shows Malcolm's passion and potential, whereas the use of blue and neutral colours in prison again connotes powerless and visually represents Malcolms internal change. From here, yellow is used heavily to symbolise his enlightenment travelling to Mecca, and earthy browns, grays and blacks represent 'the most earthbound time' in his life.
• Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) - the select use of colour on the small girl's jacket is distinctive and powerful. 'The red gives her a visual name and allows us to have a living being to cling to in this mass of nameless dehumanised near-ghosts. The child runs. She plays. She hides in this perverse metaphor for hide and seek'.
• Yellow is described as a 'contrary colour'. It can be visually aggressive, 'We've built it into our consciousness as a cautionary colour', but can also represent happiness and 'powerful life energy' like the sun. 
• Yellow is a very versatile colour, and a change in saturation can yield a different effect. Acid yellow is visually hostile, whereas a warm golden hue has associations with nostalgia and memory. 'The more lightened, the more elegant it becomes'. 
• Billy Elliot (Steven Daldry, 2000) - visual paradigms of hot bright yellow and cold bright blue in the house hold, representing a fight between love and survival and visual warfare between the love of the son and the cold steeliness for the father. Different shades of blue are used for different characters: light blue for Billy to connote youth, innocence and powerlessness, and cold dark blue for the police.
• Blue is a 'detached colour'. It can be a 'tranquil pond or a soft blanket of sadness'; 'it is a colour to think to, but not to act.'
• Steel blue and dark indigo are colours 'least associated with the sensual and most associated with the intellect'.
• The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994) contains an overall gray-blue palette which create an 'all-pervasive melancholy that underscores the story'. When a warmer light appears in the film, it 'often supports acts of Andy's kindness'. Roger Deakins describes the 'sustained mood' in the film created by consistent use of colour. 'When Red gains his freedom, since the audience has been subjected to the barrage of gray and brown for so long, the vibrancy of the green landscapes come as a shock.'
• Orange is described as being 'generically nice' - 'The colour simply supporting a warm and welcoming congeniality'. However, its effect can differ between contexts. For example, an orange light in an interior creates a romantic atmosphere, whereas orange light in the sky can sometimes connote pollution, as with Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). Here, the orange sky from outside is acid, but from the inside with Deckard and Rachael it is much softer and romantic.
• Green is a 'dichotomous colour'. Is it the colour of 'fresh vegetables and spoiled meat', representing health, ambivalence and vitality but also a sickly jealousy and irony.
• Purple is the colour of 'spirituality and mysticism'. The colour has come to be associated with royalty because of its rarity and nature - 'the trappings of emperors, queens and kings.' The colour is also associated with the 'non-corporeal'. As Bellantoni describes, 'It is the colour of the spirit... of the ideal. It is also the colour associated with death of a person or an ideal or a dream'.

I will consider this information when considering the production design for our film, in particular the established visual associations between colour and meaning and the importance of context and the colour's qualities in conveying clear meaning and emotion.